Cruz slams 'political' FBI for Clinton email recommendation

"The criminal law should apply fairly and objectively to everyone," Ted Cruz said. (AP Photo)

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz bashed the FBI and its director James Comey Friday over this week's decision not to recommend charges against Hillary Clinton for the handling of her emails.

Appearing on Glenn Beck's radio show, the Texas Republican argued that the leadership of the FBI has turned "political," akin to the Department of Justice throughout the Obama administration. He also called Comey's performance in front of the House Oversight Committee Thursday "deeply disturbing."

"We saw this with the administration's refusal to effectively investigate and prosecute abuse of the IRS targeting citizens," Cruz told the radio host. "And I'm very concerned that we're seeing the same thing with the FBI, that we are seeing leadership of the FBI behaving just as politicized as the Department of Justice has. If that's the case, that's deeply disturbing because we rely on law enforcement.

"The criminal law should apply fairly and objectively to everyone," Cruz said. "There's a reason the statue of Lady Justice is blindfolded, because it should not be a question of currying influence and power."

The former presidential candidate also took on Comey's take on Clinton's actions with her emails, including the revelation that her emails contained classified information at the time she sent them, equating the extreme carelessness that Comey spoke about on Tuesday to gross negligence, which the federal law criminalizes.

"He described a pattern of breaking the law, and a pattern of repeatedly giving false statements about it, that what she told the American people, that what she told Congress was flat out contradicted by what Comey reported," Cruz said.

"And yet, the FBI director effectively rewrote a federal statute where, in his own words, he said Hillary Clinton was extremely careless with classified information," Cruz continued, offering his explanation for Comey's reasoning to not bring charges because Clinton did not demonstrate malicious intent.

"Now, the federal criminal law criminalizes gross negligence. I've been a lawyer a lot of years. I gotta tell you, I'm not smart enough to know the difference between extreme carelessness and gross negligence," Cruz said.

"And for Comey to say the fact it's clear she was extremely careless yet the case should not even be brought to a grand jury, I think that raises a very, very serious question about whether the FBI is now behaving more as a political institution than a law enforcement institution, at least in its leadership.

"There are many brave and honorable agents in the FBI," Cruz said. "But this performance by Comey was deeply disturbing and I think Congress needs to get to the bottom of what exactly went into the FBI's refusal to proceed."

Cruz's remarks come a day after he met with Donald Trump and told reporters that Trump asked him to speak at the Republican National Convention, which begins in 10 days.